


The Cat Said Nothing

by FernDavant



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, introspective, the cat dies in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9329219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernDavant/pseuds/FernDavant
Summary: In which Quill meets a stray cat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr meme, anon requested "Prompt 4, Miss Quill and a feral cat that hangs around her neighborhood?" Prompt 4 being: I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TRUE LOVE EVEN IS BUT I DO WANT TO HANG OUT WITH YOU FOR BASICALLY THE REST OF MY LIFE. (LET’S HANG OUT - TO THE DEATH).
> 
> It got really long. So I decided to crosspost it here.

“It’s looking at me,” Charlie said, sort of pushing Quill in the general direction of his balcony.

Sat on the balcony was a cat. The cat was large and soot gray with big yellow eyes.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Quill asked with a scowl.

Charlie gestured. “Protect me.”

“It’s a cat,” Quill rolled her eyes. “It’s separated from you by a door. It’s not got thumbs. And even if it did, its danger level to you is minimal.”

“It’s been staring at me for 45 minutes straight. I can’t get any studying done. It’s unsettling.”

“It’s not looking at you,” Quill said, tilting her head and squinting a bit. “It’s just looking past you. Probably something interesting in its peripheral vision. Or it can see something reflected in the glass.”

“Quill,” Charlie barked. “Just go shoo that cat.”

“Yes, Prince Charles. Certainly, Prince Charles. Anything else you want me to do in my capacity as your enslaved bodyguard? Steal candy from a small child, perhaps?” Quill sneered, sliding open the balcony door with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary.

The cat’s eyes drew back into focus, its gaze settling upon Quill.

“Shoo,” Quill said. When the cat did not immediately respond, she repeated her words, this time punctuating them with a little gesture of her hand.

The cat did nothing.

The two stared at each other for a long moment, before the cat stretched, yawned, and gracefully walked off.

The impression the cat gave was less that it had been shooed away and more that it had merely grown disinterested.

Quill watched it jump to the ground floor, taking a few detours, then spending some time carefully licking itself.

“Happy?” Quill asked Charlie.

Charlie shrugged. “I suppose. I’m not a big fan of Earth wildlife.”

“It’s hardly ‘wild,’” Quill smirked.

“It’s a feral cat,” Charlie shuddered. “Probably carries diseases.”

Quill rolled her eyes, and walked out of Charlie’s room. “Feel free to call me if you need me to hit a squirrel with a stick. Perhaps squash a particularly large gnat.”

**

The next day, on her way walking home from school, the cat said hello to Quill.

This was a patently absurd way to phrase it, Quill realized, but she had no better way of putting it. Quill had been walking along the sidewalk, minding her own business, when a small paw reached out, hooked a claw into her coat, and meowed.

There the cat sat on a low brick wall. It decoupled its claw from Quill’s coat with a minimal of flailing, then pretended it had not flailed at all by studiously licking the previously caught paw.

Then the cat and Quill stared at each other for a while.

“You’re not feral,” Quill said finally. “You’re friendly. For a certain definition.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“No collar though,” Quill said, absentmindedly touching the cat’s neck. The cat did not flinch away. “That means you don’t live with a human, or the human doesn’t care enough about your whereabouts to give you a collar.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“What do you want, then?” Quill asked, a bit frustrated.

The cat blinked slowly at her, and headbutted Quill’s hand.

Quill had watched enough videos on the internet to know that this was an invitation. Tentatively, Quill flexed her fingers, then stroked the cat’s head. The cat began purring, pressing its head into Quill’s hand.

Quill stood there, petting the cat. The cat sat there, purring and being pet. Time passed.

“How long is this supposed to go on for?” Quill asked finally.

The cat purred. Because it was a cat.

“Because this is nice, and all, but it’s begun drizzling, and I’d like to not be outside any longer.”

The cat nipped at one of Quill’s fingers. (Because it was a cat).

“Ow!” Quill said in reply. Petulantly, Quill moved to flick one of the cat’s ears only for the cat to quickly dodge out of the way, hop down from the wall, and trot across the street. Tail held high, the cat sauntered off, never sparing a second glance at Quill.

“Weird,” Quill huffed.

But she did have to admit, the cat had the best reflexes of any living thing she’d met on this planet.

**

The following morning, on her way out the door, Quill almost tripped on a dead mouse. Or rat. She couldn’t really tell the difference between the two.

As Quill stood trying to get dead rodent off the bottom of her heels, she spotted the cat.

Quill paused, ignoring her footwear for a moment, and picked up the dead rodent to examine it.

Tiny little teeth marks.

“Did you kill this for me?” Quill asked, raising an eyebrow at the cat.

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“Because I think that’s a thing that you do.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“Cats, I mean. Not you personally.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“Although, you personally, as well. Apparently.”

The cat yawned and stretched and walked over to Quill and wound its way between her legs.

“Thanks,” Quill offered, “I appreciate the effort that went into killing this animal.”

The cat purred.

“But you know, I don’t eat these. So, if you want it back,” Quill shrugged and dangled the rat or maybe mouse in front of the cat.

The cat seemed disinterested.

“Suit yourself,” Quill said, then thought a moment.

She chucked the dead rodent up onto Charlie’s balcony, went inside (she invited the cat, but the cat declined), washed her hands, then made her way to school.

**

“I brought you chicken,” Quill said, after school, when she had finally spotted the cat again.

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“I would’ve killed it for you myself, you know, as a show of respect, but it wasn’t attacking Charlie, so I couldn’t. I got it down at the shop a few blocks over.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

Quill sat down next to the cat, where the cat was perched again on a low wall. She pulled out a whole, rotisserie chicken, pulled some meat off of it, then placed the meat in front of the cat.

The cat sniffed the bits of chicken, licked them, then began eating in earnest.

Quill pulled off some more bits of chicken and began eating it herself. It wasn’t bad.

It was a nice day. It wasn’t raining, and there were people out that the cat and Quill could glare at.

The two sat companionably, side-by-side, and slowly finished an entire chicken.

Overall, an acceptable experience for them both.

**

The cat showed up one night, at her front step, bloodied and missing a chunk of its ear, limping a bit.

Quill had heard yowling outside and gone to investigate.

“Got in a fight?” Quill asked.

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“It happens,” Quill said. “I saw a tabby around the other day. I suppose they were trying to take what was yours.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

“I don’t suppose you’d allow me to clean you up a bit?” Quill said, hesitantly reaching out a hand towards the cat.

The cat eyed her warily, posture tense, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of movement, but also, it had come to her, wanted some manner of comfort from her, or perhaps just companionship, a measure of protection.

“Most definitely wouldn’t let me take you to a vet, which is, I believe, a thing that you can do.”

The cat inched slowly towards Quill, nudging its head against Quill’s hand. Quill stroked it, studiously avoiding the cat’s bad ear.

Quill titled her head. “Do you want to come inside?”

The cat had never wanted that before. Had studiously avoided it in fact. But in its weakened state, perhaps the cat found itself relying on its friends. No shame in that.

Quill opened the door.

The cat hesitantly stepped inside.

“We can’t let Charlie see you,” Quill said. “Stay downstairs. Hide if you hear anyone else.”

The cat said nothing. Because it was a cat.

The cat slept under her bed that night, leaving the house when Quill left for work.

This continued for a few more night, until the cat seemingly decided it didn’t need Quill’s help.

Because it was a cat.

**

The cat began hanging around the school a bit.

Quill found herself almost glad to see it whenever it showed up.

She seemed to be the only one.

“Is that the same feral?” Charlie asked, wrinkling his nose at it.

“Mangy thing,” the caretaker said.

“Get it off the field!” the new football coach said.

Even the nicer students grew disinterested in it when they found that the cat wasn’t very interested in them.

“People shy, I guess,” April said to Tanya as they were walking out of the main building at school, watching the cat skitter away.

“Depends on your definition of people, I think,” Tanya said, spotting the cat winding its way between Quill’s legs.

April didn’t seem to notice.

**

Quill didn’t see when the cat got run over. She just saw the body on the side of the street where the cat had dragged itself as it had been dying.

The cat had been dead long enough for the body to have grown cold, long enough for rigor mortis to have come and passed. The latter fact made it easier to carry the cat around to find a place to bury it.

Hard to find a place to bury it in Shoreditch though, looking for a big enough plot of land to do it that wouldn’t be dug up. And walking around London with a shovel and a dead cat was probably ill-advised. Neither of these things would stop her from giving the cat a proper burial. Besides, Quill had spent most of her life hiding from authorities, and humans were pathetically unobservant.

In the end, she found a spot near the school, a bit of land that’d been dug up, cleared, but never developed during the school’s renovation.

Quill knew death, wasn’t afraid of it, but had always had a bit of a hard time shaking off that feeling of loss for those close to her, which, she supposed, the cat was. And she had always grieved the most bitterly for a pointless death, and getting run over by a car seemed to qualify as just such a death.

Still, the cat had probably had a good life by cat standards.

So really, the tears she said were for herself and not the cat.


End file.
